


Ghost Girl

by TiredRazzberry



Series: Death & the Citron [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, As of Chapter Two, Developing Friendships, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Future Fic, Gen, Just All The Angst Tags, Like Yuzu's persective is not exactly a healthy one, Mistaken Identity, Not Canon Compliant, Not Canon Compliant - Bleach Chapter 686 - Death & Strawberry, POV Minor Character, POV Outsider, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Possible Dependency Issue, Time Skips, Yuzu-Centric, she gets better though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-06 03:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12808983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiredRazzberry/pseuds/TiredRazzberry
Summary: "If it would be difficult for any of them to let go of their life in Karakura, it would be for the one Kurosaki who actually had one."Yuzu's soul reaper returns to Karakura Town bearing news.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.
> 
> Be sure to check out Part 1~!
> 
> Haha, this is actually my second time posting this work too. I messed up the date again!

Final bell rang and class was dismissed. Classrooms erupted with animated chatter as students gathered their things and spilled out into the halls. Clubrooms filled quickly. Brooms and buckets were distributed to those unlucky enough to be on cleaning duty. There was a cacophony of opening and closing lockers at the front entrance.

Yuzu finished switching out her shoes and pressed her locker shut before joining her friend Midoriko in the neighboring row.  

"Are you  _sure_  you don't want to spend the night at my house, Yuzu-chan?" Midoriko asked with a little pout as she swung her own locker shut. 

It was a cute expression, but Yuzu was unmoved. She shook her head, her smile suitably regretful. "Karin can't cook. If I went to your house, she'd end up eating gross convenience store ramen noodles and potato chips for dinner. Plus, I want to be home just in case my dad and brother come back tonight." The excuse was becoming familiar now. Midoriko had been lobbying hard for a sleepover since it became the most inconvenient time for Yuzu to have one. 

Midoriko frowned at the excuse, not especially happy to have been acquainted with it in the first place. "It's almost been a week. University tours shouldn't take this long. My big sister and mom were only gone two days when they went. Is everything alright? When did you last talk to your dad and Ichigo?" 

"Last night." Yuzu lied. She felt kind of hypocritical lying to her friend when she herself had been hurt by lies.  _But this is different,_  she told herself. Yuzu lying to Midoriko was much different from Yuzu's father and siblings lying to her. Midoriko wasn't a substitute soul reaper, or a fullbringer, or a Quincy. Her older sister wasn't any of those things either - Soul King help them if she was, with _her_  attitude. All the trouble going on in the afterlife was no more Midoriko's business than it was any other normal human's. Hopefully, it would stay that way for a long time.

"My dad said Ichigo really loves it there. It's totally meant to be." Yuzu tried to make her smile convincing. It hurt to think that Ichigo belonged anywhere besides with his family, whether it be the Soul Society or university.

Entrance exams were right around the corner. It occurred to Yuzu that as soon as she got her brother back from the Soul Society, she'd lose him again to cram school and the library. Yuzu's smile became a bit more genuine. Kurosaki Ichigo, savior of the universe, felled by calculus and classic Japanese literature. 

"That's great! I wish my sister could find a university she likes so easily. At this rate, she's going to end up not going at all." Midoriko harumphed. "And I was  _so_  looking forward to being the only kid in the house, too!" Yuzu giggled at Midoriko's indignant huffing. She'd seen the Toona sisters bicker firsthand; it was something right out of an anime, with flailing limbs and namecalling. Typically something along the lines of 'baka'. Yuzu couldn't take their sibling rivalry at all seriously. Midoriko and Kiiroka could survive another few years under the same roof. 

The two girls exited the school building and headed towards the bike racks near the side gates of the schoolyard. They found a murmuring crowd of students clustered around the racks. 

"A fight?" Midoriko whispered. 

"I don't think so." It was too quiet to be a fight Yuzu knew thanks to her brother. Hadsomething happened to the bikes?

A wicked little smile curled her friend's lips. Middle school really had changed Midori. "Let's check it out."

The girls shouldered through the small crowd. Yuzu reluctantly so. Midoriko with a bit too much enthusiasm. The both of them gasped in horror at what they met at the center of the cluster. 

A young man's body lay stiff on the ground by the bike rack. He wore a black leather jacket and skinny black jeans with biker boots.  _A punk delinquent_ , Yuzu thought frantically, suddenly recalling the soul reaper Hisagi Shuhei and how he dressed his temporary human body (a "gigai", according to her father) just the week before. Yuzu approached the gigai, ignoring Midoriko's panicked pleads of "Yuzu", "wait", and "don't" and the rest of the crowd's shock and dismay. Yuzu got to her knees and timidly turned the body's head so she could see the left side of the person's face. A '69' tattoo had Yuzu caught halfway between horrified and relieved. 

Horrified because Hisagi had left what amounted to a dead body laying steps from her bicycle. Relieved because at least she wasn't poking at the actual dead body of a total stranger. 

"Hisagi~!" Yuzu whined helplessly. 

Midoriko's jaw dropped. "You  _know_  him?"

Yuzu nodded nervously. "He's my cousin." She said, repeating the lie she told the police officer just a week before.

"Oh, Yuzu, I'm so sorry! We have to call your dad and an ambulance!" Midoriko cried.

"I called them already!" A boy in the crowd shouted out.

"A few kids went to go get the nurse!" A girl added.

Midoriko dug through her school bag like there was a backstage pass for her favorite visual kei group at the bottom. "G-gimme a sec. You can use my phone, Yuzu." Her voice was shaking. Midoriko's voice never shook. Not even in her timid elementary school days. 

"I," Yuzu paused, noting all the worried and sympathetic eyes on her and Hisagi's gigai. They thought a member of her family was unconscious or worse in the schoolyard before her very eyes. Yuzu was a good girl with a good reputation. Sympathy wasn't hard to come by. But that same fact left some confused. Yuzu could see the gears turning in their heads.  _I should be crying and acting more worried,_  Yuzu realized with a start. She forced herself to wrap her arms around the gigai and pull the head into her lap, hoping to put on a show of familial worry. It was strange. She was so used to genuine fretting, it felt awkward to feign. "Thank you all so much." She said to the crowd. Her stage fright did  _some_  good. There was a nervous tremble in her voice to match her friend's.

Just as Midoriko handed Yuzu her cellphone, Karin and her own gang burst onto the scene.

"Yuzu, what's going on?" Her twin demanded. Her eyes widened at the sight of Hisagi. "This guy again?" 

"Cousin Shuhei collapsed, Karin." Said Yuzu, hoping her sister would understand. She'd only shared just about every detail on her time with Hisagi after she saw the reaper off. She nearly heaved a sigh of relief when understanding immediately lit up Karin's eyes. The only reason she didn't was because it would be too early for that in the eyes of their audience.

"He must have gone after that hollow I sensed earlier," Karin muttered.

"What was that, Karin?" Midoriko asked.

"Nothing." Karin dismissed the other girl. "Come on, Yuzu, I'll help you get him onto his back." She said, getting to her knees. Once the gigai was on its back, Karin whispered instructions to Yuzu to look through his pockets for "a stupid candy dispenser-looking thing. With a bunny or duck top, maybe." Yuzu went through the jacket while Karin braved the pants, but the both of them came up empty aside from a thinly lined wallet and some Soul Tickets. "Dammit," Karin growled. 

The crowd was getting antsy. It had been several minutes, there was no sign of an ambulance, a nurse, or even a teacher, and Hisagi had yet to show a twitch of life. 

Yuzu was about to ask Karin if she knew a soul reaper trick to fix this mess when she spotted something fuzzy over her twin's shoulder. The faint outline of a person, like a smudge in the air - a spirit. Karin sensed it, too. She looked over her shoulder, seeing far more than Yuzu likely, and let out a small sigh. Yuzu watched the spirit approach them with baited breath. It touched the gigai and disappeared. At that moment, Hisagi inhaled sharply and his dark eyes snapped open. The crowd gasped - then chuckled at their own skittishness. Some rowdier boys decided cheers were in order. One guy awkwardly clapped like Hisagi had done a neat trick. 

"Thank goodness!" Midoriko cried out. Her sigh of relief was a full-body motion. 

Hisagi sat up, taking in the scene with flushed cheeks. He rubbed the back of his neck as he turned to Yuzu and Karin. "Sorry for the circus." He whispered. "I didn't have any soul candy on hand."

"I have no idea what that is, but I'm glad you're okay." Yuzu replied.

In the distance, there were long awaited sirens. 

Karin grabbed Yuzu and Hisagi's arms and tugged them half out of their sockets. "Come on, let's beat it."

The three of them hastily retreated through the side gate of the schoolyard onto the streets of Karakura Town. Midoriko and the crowd called after them; two particularly dedicated bystanders gave chase for a few dozen meters. Yuzu felt a twinge of guilt over Midoriko, shoved it down, and kept running. 

When they seemed a safe distance away, they took refuge in a narrow alleyway. Karin and Yuzu started firing off questions as soon as they caught their breath. So, of course, Karin was first. 

"Is everything all right at the Soul Society?"

Hisagi's smile, light and marshmallowy, would have served well enough as an answer. "Seeing as how the living world, my world, and Hueco Mundo all still exist, I'd say yes. There was a lot of damage, and we lost a lot of good soul reapers, but the war is over. Thanks to your brother and his friends, we won."

Yuzu and Karin cheered and threw their arms around each other. They squeezed, they lifted each other up, they spun in circles. They pulled apart only to pull Hisagi in. There was some sort of rule about shooting messengers, but none about hugging the breath out of them.  

"Hey now! I get enough dirty looks as it is in this world!" The blushing lieutenant complained. "That last thing I need is to be seen hugging on two little girls in a dark alley." He chuckled uneasily. Karin and Yuzu laughed as they released their prisoner. Maybe more at him than with him. Happy tears slid down their cheeks and dripped from their chins all the while.

"I need to go to the grocery store!" Yuzu announced happily.  _Spring onions, wasabi paste, dashi stock..._ The list went on for a mile. "I need to get all the ingredients for Ichigo and Dad's welcome home dinner."

Her spirits fell with Hisagi's smile. Karin noticed the change as well and rounded on the soul reaper. 

"Hisagi-san, is our brother-"

"He's alive." Hisagi interrupted Karin's panicked question. Yuzu was grateful for that. She didn't think she could bear to even hear the question asked. "But he will not be returning to the world of the living ever again. I'm sorry." Yuzu's gratefulness vanished. 

"But..." Yuzu trailed off, remembering what she had overheard in her father's office. "Not ever?" Her voice was a squeak. 

Hisagi's expression was grave. For all her past comparisons of sugary confections and cute animals, Yuzu decided that Hisagi was the perfect grim reaper. His dark features, his scars, how he flipped that switch so easily and could become a dutiful soldier in tone and posture. He might as well be telling her that her brother was dead. He was stuck in the afterlife after all. "Never, Yuzu-chan." The only reason she didn't burst into tears right then was that she was busy trying to wrap her head around the idea of eternity. 

"But soul reapers come to the human world all the time.  _You're_  here right now." Karin protested.

"Your brother isn't an ordinary soul reaper, Karin-san. Not that he ever was." Hisagi was quick to respond. "With his immense power, he cannot come back here. It could have negative effects on this world." 

Before Yuzu could even begin to digest that - that her kind and down-to-earth brother held "immense power" - on top of the reality of never seeing him again, Karin was asking more troubling questions. "What about our Dad? Why isn't  _he_  telling us this? Why you?"

Yuzu's heart stumbled in its race.  _Please, no._

She hadn't been the nicest to him the past several months, for reasons unclear even to her. And he had only started being honest with her in the past week and only under duress. His goodbyes to her and Karin had been hasty, his reassurances half-baked and that last hug too short. She'd set a place for him at the table every night since like she had for Ichigo. To lose them both at once - to lose one truly for forever - was too much. 

Hisagi came to the rescue once more. "Don't worry. He's still recovering is all. I came here because Ichigo's friends are busy with clean up and are healing still themselves in some cases. I met you two last time I was here, so they sent me to deliver the news." Hisagi shifted his weight foot to foot, avoiding eye contact with either girl as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the Soul Tickets they'd come across earlier.

"I was told to bring you more of these. I know you already have some, but your father's kind of paranoid you'll lose them. He managed to get the Head Captain to consent to giving you more. Being Kurosaki's little sisters and all." He handed the tickets to Yuzu. 

 _Soul Ticket._ Yuzu ran her thumb over the 's'. It looked as innocuous as a ticket for a carnival ride or a train. Trains and the afterlife. Yuzu had seen the connection be made in films, with lost children and ghosts and lost ghost children stepping onto phantom trains in the middle of the countryside, far from earthly tracks. If she tried really hard, could Yuzu just pretend her brother was only a train ride away? Could she fool herself into believing he was just another teenage boy and had simply run off to university like he was supposed to? 

The girl wept. Paper crinkled in her fingers. "There has to be a way for him to come home, Hisagi-kun. There just  _has_  to!" She squeezed her eyes shut. She wished, she prayed. If her brother had won, that meant the Soul King was alive, and if the Soul King was alive he owed her one for keeping his savior well-fed all these years. He owed her this. "I was going to make him all his favorite foods when he came home. I was going to invite all his friends and make a big banner. I was going to invite you, Hisagi-kun. Please, there has to be a way to fix this!"

She opened her eyes to find Hisagi looking guilty. She almost felt bad. None of this was his fault. She hardly knew a thing about the Soul Society but she knew at heart that there was truly nothing to be done. Not when it was so obvious that this was actually... Yuzu couldn't acknowledge the truth quite yet.

Karin stared down at her feet. Her face was carefully blank but Yuzu knew her sister was falling back into old habits and on the inside was furiously putting up walls. She'd rather go crazy in her own head than cry in front of her sister. It growing harder by the minute to see how the situation at hand was any different from when their mom died. Karin was retreating into herself and the center of their family was gone and he wasn't ever coming back. 

The twins wordlessly reached out and took each other's hands. Together they fled the alley back to their empty house. 

Hisagi showed up on their doorstep later that evening looking like a kicked dog.

"I know I shouldn't be bothering you, but you two have been on your own for a week now. If I'm troubling you, I'll turn around and go back to the Soul Society right now." He greeted Yuzu with a bow.

There was a long pause where Hisagi remained prostrated, waiting for Yuzu's reply. It looked uncomfortable. Yuzu held the door open wider to let him inside. Hisagi straightened up at the creak of the door and followed her inside.

"Dinner's almost ready. I'll have Karin bring down some blankets so you can sleep on the couch tonight." She informed the soul reaper as she returned to the kitchen, leaving him alone in the family room. She'd never been so unwelcoming towards a guest before. It wasn't as cathartic as one might think. 

Dinner was an awkward affair and everything following it verged on hostile. Karin locked herself up in their bedroom within a minute of setting her fork down. When Yuzu began to clear away the dishes, Hisagi tried to lend a helping hand. Yuzu snatched the plate out of his hand and banished him to the living room. She never heard the TV, so he must have sat there in silence while she did the dishes.

She stepped out of the kitchen to find Hisagi slipping on his leather jacket.

"Leaving so soon?" She asked. Guilt washed over Yuzu. She hated to think she had driven him off so quickly with her and her sister's coldness.

Thankfully for her conscious, Hisagi shook his head. "You left your bike back at the school, right? I had gone by the racks to wait for you since your father said you rode your bike to and from school. But we ran off in such a hurry, and you have school tomorrow, right? I'll go get it for you." He explained with a smile. The guilt came back. First the dishes, now the bike. He was trying to make up for Ichigo with small acts of kindness. 

"You don't have to do that." 

"No, let me." Hisagi insisted. "It's the least I can do."

"At least let me come with you so no one thinks you're stealing it." Yuzu suggested. It defeated the purpose of him going to fetch the bike for her - it was hardly a two person job and Yuzu wasn't being saved any time or energy, but Hisagi conceded. Yuzu threw on a jacket and the two headed out. 

The sun was setting over Karakura Town when they set out for the school. It was too beautiful for Yuzu's melancholy and it made her think of things she really didn't want to. Her family had never been the most religious. She remembered not knowing what to tell classmates when they asked if they celebrated Christmas because it was fun or because they actually believed in all that Jesus stuff. Her dad threw around references to Buddism and Shintoism in equal measure. There was no denying they were spiritual, what with the ghosts always hanging around. Sacraments and ritual were debatable. Now, Yuzu knew about the Soul Society, and she wondered if it was anything like what people liked to believe about the afterlife. It certainly didn't sound like paradise. Two wars in under three years was not a good look. Her brother's new world was mysterious. There were things Yuzu would never know about it unless she asked. Unless, she - "Are sunsets in the Soul Society like the ones here?" She blurted out, breaking the silence between her and Hisagi.

Hisagi was taken off-guard for bare seconds. "Yes. Identical, really. Things really aren't as different as you might think between our two worlds." His reply was soft-spoken, a careful reassurance.

Yuzu nodded, pleased somewhat by his answer. "That's good. Does that mean you have the same foods in the Soul Society as here? Do you even need food there?"

"Well, not everyone, and not all foods. Older dishes, sure. Modern human foods, no, not really. Only soul reapers and nobles can import those sort of things, and only in small number."

"Modern foods. Like instant ramen and potato chips?" Yuzu grimaced a little at the mention of them. She'd never been fond. 

"Yeah, kind of like that, I guess." Hisagi didn't sound like he had the highest opinion either. "Those are the noodles you put in a mircowavey-thingy, right? And really thin and crispy potato slices?"

"Yes, yes, exactly." Yuzu said, cracking a smile. Ichigo had never been a big fan of junk food. None of their family was, even though Yuzu was the only one with a lick of cooking ability. Sometimes she wondered how her father survived before he got married. Off convenience store fare likely, used to be her answer. Now, mess hall food maybe? Hisagi  _had_  compared the seireitei to a massive military base. Yuzu couldn't stomach the idea of Ichigo slouched over in a canteen thrice a day, shoveling Soul King knew what down his gullet. "You can make traditional Japanese dishes there, right? That's what you meant by 'older dishes', yeah?" 

"Of course." Answered Hisagi. He gave her a careful sidelong glance. "Why do you ask?"

The sky was dark now, the sun having slipped just beyond the horizon. The street lamps flickered to life up and down the street they'd been walking. Spotlight, a cue if there ever was one. 

"Hisagi-kun," Yuzu began. She spun on her heel to face the soul reaper, hands clasped primly behind her back.

Hisagi yielded to her, taking a measured step back, mindful of his appearance and her youth as always. It gave her space to breathe and space to think this all over one last time. Not about Ichigo, but for the first time in a long while, herself. Yuzu was much like her father and brother in the sense that she didn't have much in the way of friends or hobbies. Keeping house and going to school was time-consuming, and not all her schoolmates had been understanding of that. Other boys and girls didn't really get it when Yuzu said she couldn't play after school because she needed to make dinner and do the laundry, or that she couldn't go to the park that weekend because she'd promised to help out at the clinic. Midoriko alone had ever been willing to just come and sit on the washer and talk while Yuzu folded shirts. Besides her visits, most of Yuzu's free time had been spent with solitary pursuits. She never had time for sewing club meetings at school, but she had made Bostov a number of adorable ensembles late in the evening before turning in for the night. And the TV was always there to fill the background as she dusted - Don Kanonji was animated enough for a dozen grade school companions. 

Middle school hadn't changed any of this. By then, all Yuzu's classmates knew there was no use inviting her to club meetings or out to the movies. She was as good as any boring adult in their eyes. Really, despite all appearances, Karin had always been the social butterfly of the Kurosaki family. She had always had the time to play soccer and hang out and lacked the eye-catching hair that dogged their brother throughout his school career. If it would be difficult for any of them to let go of their life in Karakura, it would be for the one Kurosaki who actually had one.  

Yuzu would lose exactly one thing if Hisagi granted her request. 

"Hisagi-kun, I'd like you to take me to the Soul Society. I can make my brother his welcome dinner there." 

"Yuzu," There was a light reprimand in Hisagi's tone. "He's not coming home, you know that. You can't just visit him like he's in the hospital."

"But he is home. The Soul Society is his home now. Whether he likes it or not." Yuzu stated matter-of-factly. "But he does like it, doesn't he, Hisagi-kun." It was no question and there was no denial on Hisagi's face, only sadness on her behalf. Yuzu didn't want him to be sad. In her mind, there was no reason any of them had to be sad in this situation. "My brother loves his new friends and their world. Probably more than he's ever loved his life in the human world. He's given nearly everything to protect them and the Soul Society. First from that Aizen guy, then from the Quincy. This was inevitable really, wasn't it?" Yuzu hadn't stopped thinking about it since she and Karin had fled the alley. This was meant to be. Fate. 

"Yuzu-chan, please don't think your brother wanted to leave you." Hisagi pleaded.

"I don't believe that, Hisagi-kun. The only thing I don't believe is that fate would have me separated from my brother till my death. I refuse to not be part of the world he loves so much. I think Karin feels the same way. She feels like a freak here sometimes, being able to see and hear things normal people can't. I can only see the outlines of spirits, so I can hardly imagine what it's like for her. She'd be better off in the Soul Society. At least there, she could work to stand shoulder to shoulder with our brother like she's always wanted."

"Are you seriously suggesting that you and your sister come and live in the seireitei?"

Yuzu met Hisagi's bewildered gaze with determination. He shouldn't be so surprised, Yuzu mused. He'd said it himself, she was Ichigo's sister. 

Slim fingers folded over her stomach. A delicate prayer. "That's exactly what I'm saying, Hisagi-kun. So please, will you take me and Karin to the Soul Society?"

Several painstaking seconds stretched into a nerve-wracking minute and a half. The soul reaper's answer was quiet but resolute. Yuzu mourned for the one friendship she had ever known, though she was the one becoming a ghost. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Midoriko Toona is a canon Bleach character. She appeared very early on, and could, in fact, see spirits, but she dropped out of the story after one appearance walking home from school with the Kurosaki sisters. 
> 
> Everything else about her was dreamt up for this fic, including her middle school personality and family life. I actually may be the only person to write Midoriko in a Bleach fic, she's so minor haha.

"It's  _my_ turn, hand it over!" Midoriko swiped helplessly at the air as her sister held the remote a hair out of reach. She only had half an inch on Midoriko these days but by the Buddha, did she make use of it in the worst ways. Her sister's other hand snaked up from her side and smooshed Midoriko's face in a bid to reclaim lost personal space.

"It's  _my_ turn still, Greenie~!" Kiiroka singsonged like the anime villain she was. 

"Mom said  _one_ show," Midoriko snarled, drawing back her fist for a lightning-quick gut punch. 

Kiiroka caught her fist with a cruel smirk. Damn her and her discount karate lessons yellow belt. She squeezed down on Midori's hand. Hard. "It has been _one_ show, Midori-chan." 

"M-marathons don't-" Midoriko clamped down on her bottom lip, refusing to whimper. In retaliation, she mercilessly pinched the inside of her sister's arm and gave the sensitive skin there a savage twist. Murder flashed in Kiiroka's eyes. She dug her manicured nails into the delicate flesh across the top of Midoriko's left hand. Midoriko gave up on the remote and latched onto a length of black hair. So began a vicious standoff between siblings. 

The whole shebang. Death glares, gritted teeth, and some primal growling for good measure. 

By the sound of their yipping terrier on the couch, the growling may have been a bit much. 

"Girls, take it down a notch." Their mother called from the kitchen. 

Had she meant Midoriko's pride, Kiiroka would have been more than obliging with what she did next. One second Midoriko had two feet firmly planted in the carpet, the next she was eating dust-bunnies. Some warped karmic justice for not finishing the vacuuming before like she was supposed to. Midoriko could dwell on that later. She had more pressing concerns in the form of her sadist sister twisting her arm behind her back in what was absolutely an illegal hold. 

"Lemme go!" 

"Nope." Kiiroka popped as she _sat_ on Midoriko's back like she was a damned cushion.

"Get off me! I can't breathe under your elephant butt."

"Funny. Suffocation victims don't usually have the breath to call people fat."

Pinned down as she was, Midoriko could only glare at the wall opposite the TV, but she heard it just fine when her sister flipped away from the anime Midoriko had been about to sit down with back to her asinine drama. After some squirming and poorly aimed kicks, Midoriko relinquished herself to her fate and made herself an arm pillow for her rug-burned face. The dog was kind enough to hop down and keep her company. 

Near the climax of the episode, when Kiiroka was on the edge of her seat and Midoriko was halfway free, karma came for her sister as well. 

_Knock! Knock!_

An interrupted groan from her sister as her immersion was broken. Then a tense silence as the whole house waited for one of them to grow some manners.

_Knock! Knock!_

"Kiiroka," Mom called from the kitchen. "The door." 

Kiiroka sputtered. The commercial break was a ways off. The leads were at maximum Will-They-Won't-They levels of tension. Even Midoriko was verging on interested. And someone was waiting on their doorstep out in the dark. Midoriko shot the dog a satisfied smile. She liked to think he would have shared it with her, had he the facial muscles.  

"But Mom~!" Kirroka whined. "Sachi and Oikawa are about to-" 

"Door. Now." 

Kiiroka shot up and to the genkan in record time. Midoriko scrambled to her feet. She was already flipping through channels as she sank into the couch cushions. The dog nestled in her lap completed the victorious image she wanted Kiiroka to return to. Maybe that was a bit much, though, since she never got to see that sour defeat on her sister's face. Instead, karma saw it that she be called to the door. 

The sisters passed each other in the living room entryway. 

"It's your friend Kurosaki-chan," Kiiroka said in a rush. 

Whatever disappointment Midoriko was feeling disappeared. She practically skipped the rest of the way to the door, only half wondering why her sister had rudely left Yuzu at the door instead of inviting her in. She found her friend still standing beyond the open door on the front stoop.

The oddities quickly started stacking on top of one another. 

Yuzu was polite, but she was no stickler. Surely she felt welcome enough at the Toona home after all these years to at least step into the genkan and out of the cold. If only for a moment. 

She still wore her uniform for some reason, but Yuzu always changed when she got home from school. Even if she was just hanging around the clinic, doing chores, Yuzu liked to keep her uniform pristine. 

Someone loomed in the night a few paces behind her. At first glance, Midoriko thought it might be Ichigo, but a few blinks brought the punk cousin from earlier that day into focus. That on its own meant almost nothing. It was late and young girls like Yuzu needed an intimidating escort. If it was strange to see him up and walking around, the fainting spell could be explained away by low blood sugar. Ichigo apparently went through a period where he passed out a lot, so maybe it ran in the family. The punk's fashion sense was questionable, but not his presence on its own. But that along with the uniform and Yuzu's reluctance to step inside put Midoriko on edge. 

Nevertheless, she greeted her friend with a smile. 

"Hey, Yuzu. You're a little late, but I'm sure my parents will-"

"I'm sorry, Midoriko," Yuzu cut her off. Midoriko registered this with surprise. Yuzu never stepped on someone else's words, not unless she was super excited. However, her face was the farthest thing from. "I didn't come over for a sleepover." 

"Why are you here then?" Midoriko asked, casting a suspicious look at the punk. He avoided her gaze, busy kicking at nonexistent dirt. 

"I came to say goodbye." Said Yuzu. Midoriko leveled her with a confused look.

"Are you going somewhere?"

Yuzu nodded with a smile. Midoriko's snap judgment was that it was fake, but she realized quickly that wasn't quite right. It was a real enough smile. It just looked like it felt guilty spread there across Yuzu's face. "Me and Karin are going to go see Ichigo and our dad. I won't be at school tomorrow or...for a while, really." Yuzu's guilty little smile disappeared then. She pulled Midoriko into a tight hug. "I just wanted to say goodbye before I left." 

The whisper tickled the shell of Midoriko's ear. Yuzu pulled away, smiling again. Yet she looked ready to cry. 

"Look me up when it's your turn, okay?" With that cryptic farewell, Yuzu turned around and joined her cousin's side. Midoriko followed them past her front gate, down the street, and to the corner with her eyes, uncomprehending. her best friend, who she knew better than anyone in this world, was acting so strangely. _When Yuzu comes back to school_ , she thought faintly, _I'll ask her about it_. All of sudden, however, she doubted she'd ever get the chance.

At the corner, Yuzu paused momentarily and called over her shoulder, "It would have been nice to have one last sleepover." 

With those words, Midoriko was struck with overwhelming worry for her friend's safety. "Yuzu, wait!" She shouted as she rushed out the gates and onto the street. She flung herself around the corner after the pair. Ten seconds, no more had passed since they'd turned the same corner and yet they were nowhere to be seen, up and down the road or even the nearby alley. There was nothing but dim street lamps and darkness.

She stepped back into the house and sank into the couch beside her sister. Between handfuls of chips, Kiiroka inquired, "Where's your friend?"

Midoriko almost didn't hear her over the television and her own frazzled thoughts. "She...was just stopping by." She answered carefully, not sure if she should share what just transpired with her sister. 

Kiiroka gave her a long look. Her jaw worked furiously at the wad potato chips she'd just shoved in. "Huh," She turned back to the TV. "Weird." 

"It was." Midoriko agreed. She decided to ask Yuzu for an explanation tomorrow at school - or whenever she decided to show up. 

She explained away her friend's absence the next day as her having a family emergency. Easy, considering her cousin passed out in front of half the class the day before. The day after that was harder. After school, she swung by the clinic and knocked on the door. No answer. She borrowed her sister's cell phone when she got home and called the Kurosaki home, then the clinic proper. No answer. Just Kurosaki-sensei's obnoxious voicemail. She asked Karin's soccer buddies if they had seen or heard from her next. Just plain no. By Friday, Midoriko was forced to admit to Nomura-sensei that she had no idea where either Yuzu or her sister was. The police showed up on her doorstep soon after, asking about the last sighted location of Kurosaki Yuzu. Midoriko answered that they were standing on it. Her parents invited the officers in for tea. 

In Midoriko's opinion, she learned more from police than they did from her. The girls had been reported missing by the school. Once the police began their inquiry, they quickly found that Kurosaki Ichigo had been absent from school for even longer than his sisters. His employer saw him once a few days after his initial absence, then nothing. Meanwhile, Kurosaki Isshin had canceled all his appointments scheduled in the week leading up to and following his daughters' disappearances. Midoriko told them what Yuzu had told her - that Ichigo and his father were visiting a prospective university in the south - but was told this contradicted a story told to Ichigo's own school that he was attending a special all-star soccer camp on the opposite end of the country. Stranger still, three of his closest friends had also vanished. None of their families had formally reported them as Missing Persons yet, but coincidences didn't exist in the police's eyes. They let it slip to Midoriko's parents they had yet to find any real evidence that Isshin or Ichigo had left Karakura by train, car, or camel. Apparently, it was a real headache for them. 

"Especially with the boy's history..." 

They were going to start looking for bodies. That's what everyone thought but no one said for the whole week that the investigation lasted. The search parties were never formed. Ichigo's friends stepped forward in the nick of time with witness testimony and solid evidence that the Kurosaki family was alive and well. Arisawa Tatsuki, Asano Keigo, and Yasutora Sado, who had disappeared right along with the Kurosaki family, all claimed to have visited them at their new home in the countryside.

The family had decided to return to Kurosaki Isshin's hometown where Ichigo had decided to attend university. The decision had been impromptu, hence their 'disappearance'. Ichigo's employer soon corroborated this, saying Ichigo had finally called in with his formal resignation. Inoue Orihime's employers said something similar, and Ishida Ryuuken told the local press that his son was alive and free to do as he pleased. The police closed their investigation. The Kurosaki name disappeared from the local newspapers. Unfortunate, seeing as no one at school seemed to know the full story. 

Rumors flew around in loo of it. Suspicions about gang activity still ran high. Plenty of people were convinced that his family and closest friends had been run out of town thanks to whatever trouble Ichigo was always in. A few different gangs bragged that it was their doing. A fair number wondered if rather than a death threat, Ichigo had been fleeing charges of some sort. This, the police _had_ to come out and refute in the paper some weeks later, saying they had nothing worse on Kurosaki Ichigo than some fist fights. Still, people wondered. Some favored romance, and it was said that Inoue and Ichigo had eloped. Others had it that it was Inoue and Ishida. Others, _all three_. There was also rampant speculation about some long-distance girlfriend of Ichigo's, his father's past affiliations, that shady candy shop, and Don Kannonji of all people. 

Midoriko turned to her sister for details. She was in the same year as Ichigo's friends and had the best shot between the two of them of getting the full picture. For once, Kiiroka wasn't a jerk about doing her little sister a favor and came back with a literal picture in her school bag. Just one of many shown to the police. 

"Arisawa-san gave it to me when I explained that you and Yuzu-chan had been friends." She slid the photo across the kitchen table towards Midoriko. The light's glare disappeared and Midoriko found her best friend smiling up at her. She tentatively peeled the photograph away from the woodgrain for closer examination. 

Yuzu was sat down at a kotatsu in a very traditional-looking room. Midoriko was affected by her bright smile even in ink. Karin was at her side, looking bemused by her sister's chipper attitude, per usual, chin resting in hand. The shoji doors behind them were open; out on the engawa and in the well-groomed yard beyond, the photographer had glimpsed Ichigo and a half dozen strangers to Midoriko. One may have been that Rukia girl that had stayed with the Kurosakis for a time, another Inoue Orihime with her impressive bust and ginger hair, but the others were unknowns dressed in black. 

Yuzu's smile alone assured Midoriko that they weren't attending a funeral. But even the sisters were dressed strangely by their own standards. Midoriko had never seen either Kurosaki sister in a kimono or other traditional dress outside of a summer festival. Yet there they were, lounging in red and white _kosode_. Rumor had it that the Kurosakis had taken off to the backwoods of Japan, but had they had they time-traveled as well? Those outfits the sisters were sporting _did_ remind her a little of Kikyo...

Midoriko flipped the photo over. Nothing but the print shop logo. 

She returned the photo to Arisawa herself. Tracked her down to the dojo she trained at and waited outside till the street lamps blinked to life and Arisawa stepped out with a gym bag slung over her shoulder. The older girl took her in with a sour look. 

"Listen, I'm done with you nosey brats coming around and-"

Midoriko presented her with the photo. Arisawa blinked, gave Midoriko a much more careful look than before, and slowly reached out and took it. "You're Yuzu-chan's friend," She said, peering over the photograph at her. She tried to hand it back. "Keep it, she'd want you to have it." 

"I'd rather have her phone number." 

Arisawa's confident smile fell away. She scrubbed awkwardly at her neck. "I don't have one to give you. They don't have a line set up out there. The sticks, ya know?" 

"An address for a letter?" 

"I don't...recall it exactly." 

"How are you keeping in contact with Ichigo-san then?" 

"I'm not," Arisawa grimaced at telephone pole on the opposite side of the street. "He contacts me, not the other way around." 

She felt a sudden connection with the older girl. That grimace made her understand that she wasn't the only one who felt left behind and half-forgotten about. 

Midoriko crossed her arms. "You promise to get their number to me when you have it?" 

Arisawa finally looked at her again, but not in the eye like she'd hoped. "Pinky promise." She let Midoriko keep the photo. 

Entrance exams prep kicked into high gear shortly thereafter. That was how Midoriko justified Arisawa's unfulfilled promise. Then it was April, and her sister graduated alongside Ichigo's remaining friends, and a month later they were all off to far-flung universities. Midoriko never even got the name of the town. 

She was left with three things to remember her best friend by. 

First, the photograph. Midoriko pinned it to the cork board over her desk. Adjacent to and overlapping a dozen treasured memories like her last trip to the zoo with her family, her eleventh birthday party, her and Yuzu in a photo booth at the mall, a class trip to the beach, and her and Yuzu's first day of middle school. Even as she made new friends and new treasured memories, she refused to let the one she wasn't there for be buried. 

Second, the empty clinic. Though the Kurosaki family never did return to Karakura Town, someone had gone to the trouble of clearing out the clinic and the Kurosaki home and shipping them their things. The building remained. The Kurosaki name over the front entrance remained. Thick locks kept Midoriko from ever stepping inside again, but she could glimpse that name on her way to and from school and remember Yuzu swinging open the door with a welcoming smile. 

Third, the pink bike with its little white basket. It sat chained to the school rack beside its emerald green sister. Yuzu and Karin left them behind that last day when they ran off with their cousin. Whoever packed up their house didn't bother with the bikes. They rusted in the schoolyard through the years. The basket fell apart under the weight of many rainstorms. When Karin's bike was stolen, Yuzu's remained. 

Midoriko's family moved into a bigger house when her mom was promoted at work. The photograph -  _all_ of her photographs - was lost in the move. Her 'desk stuff' box got mixed up somehow with the 'miscellaneous junk to go to the dump' box. She'd cried for an hour, moped for a weekend, and managed to get copies of most the photos from friends and family. 

Maruyama replaced Kurosaki. A new doctor was in town and had bought up the property the minute it went on the market seemingly. One day a sign popped up in the window, crude kanji in marker taped to the glass, with a phone number. Then a man with a ladder was chipping away the Kurosaki name from the clinic entrance. Finally, Midoriko ran into the good doctor and her husband, a nurse, on move-in day. They were lovely people. 

The bike was still there at Midoriko's middle school graduation. It was the lone physical proof that the Kurosakis had ever lived in Karakura Town. She spared it a glance on her way out the gates one last time as a student. 

High school drudged up bitter feelings. She wore the same uniform as liars and promise-breakers. The uniform she and Yuzu used to tease they'd wear better than the other. Midoriko found herself thinking about her old friend almost every day. She wondered what Yuzu's new school was like. If she liked her uniform, if she liked the countryside. She began to wonder if Yuzu was in school at all. If she had ever left Karakura Town. If she was...When her thoughts got too dark even for an angsty teen like herself, Midoriko thought about the pink bike rather than its owner. She was sure by the time she graduated high school that it'd been removed from the racks. 

Graduation meant letting go of childhood, growing up, and moving on. University in Tokyo brooked no argument over this; between classes, work, friends, and boys, Midoriko managed to forget Kurosaki Yuzu for a few years. She bought Yasutora Sado's debut album without resentment. She watched Asano Keigo's goofy ghost hunter show and laughed with him. Being happy for Arisawa's martial arts championship was harder but she managed. 

She met her first love in a philosophy course, and they broke each other's hearts within the year. Her parents divorced. Her sister got married to an American guy and Midoriko stood as the Maid of Honor. She'd never thought they'd be so close. She spent a summer in LA with them and learned to surf. She went back to school that Fall and fell in love a second time. She nearly married the guy, but couldn't bring herself to be tied down just yet. She got into a fight with her parents over it. Security versus freedom, an age-old debate. They made up when her dad got sick. The whole family rallied. Kiiroka and her husband even crossed the Pacific. Chemotherapy beat the cancer back for the time being. Her parents got remarried, a winter wedding for those in the winter of their lives. Midoriko moved back in with them once she graduated. 

Unlike Ichigo's friends, Midoriko didn't find her way into the limelight. She ended up back in Karakura Town as a teacher at her old middle school. Little had changed since she had been a student. The blackboards had been replaced with whiteboards. The faucets and towel dispensers in the bathrooms were automatic. The school had wifi and a computer lab. Otherwise, same uniforms, same ancient principal, same textbooks, unfortunately. A lot of the same, and that was sweet. But in one case, it was bewildering and bitter. 

From her homeroom classroom, Midoriko could spy the old bike racks. She passed them each morning and each evening on her way to and from class. There, pale and rusted, Yuzu's bike remained.  

It was painful to see each day in a way Midoriko hadn't thought to prepare herself for. She'd been so sure that the bike would be long gone. Why it was still there was a mystery. Her first year of teaching was spent waffling on whether to ask a member of the administration about it. She wanted to know their reasons for keeping it around, but a small part of her feared bringing the bike to their attention. What if it had simply slipped their minds all these years? Midoriko saying anything could end up with her losing the last vestige of her best friend.

Two years passed and the old the lock rusted to bits at long last and fell away. A student took the time to tell Midoriko this, so she felt obligated to do the same with the school principal. He said he'd have it taken care of. A day passed and the bike sat untouched on the rack as it had for over a decade. Another day passed much the same, and so on until after three days, Midoriko passed through the side gates on her way to the main building and something glinted in the grey-blue morning light in the corner of her eye. She turned. One lone bike was chained to the racks at this early hour - keyword: _chained_. Someone had put a new lock on Yuzu's bike. 

Midoriko moved along to the teachers' office. She sank down at her desk and began to put away her purse and shuffle papers. In the next half hour, her co-workers began to trickle in and prepare for their own classes. A familiar presence made itself comfortable at the neighboring desk and Midoriko soon found a piping hot cup of coffee under her nose. 

"Good morning, Nomura-sensei," Midoriko greeted her old homeroom teacher with a smile. She took the coffee gratefully. 

"Good morning, Toona-chan," The older woman replied. She took a long sip from her own animesque kitten-and-puppy print mug. Midoriko felt suddenly rather nude and her posture all but disappeared as she set aside her coffee and tucked in with her lesson plan. "Sleep well?" Normua inquired in such a way that said she thought Midoriko looked _terrible_. 

"Not the best, actually," Midoriko admitted. Her eyes were on her lesson plan still but she hadn't read a word. 

Nomura hummed, unconcerned. "Student troubles?" 

"Not exactly." 

A beat. Sensei was intrigued now. "Matsui-sensei troubles?" 

 _Critical hit_. All Midoriko's breath left her in a schoolgirl giggle that'd have her students second-guessing her adulthood. Her facial muscles spasmed oddly, torn between grinning like an idiot and contorting in absolute horror that she was being so uncool over a _name_. "Sensei~!" She whined lowly. "He's just across the room." 

Across the room and oblivious as ever. _He'd make an excellent anime protagonist_ , Midoriko thought idly. 

Nomura tittered without guilt. "My apologies, dear." 

She was immune to the withering glare Midoriko shot her once she'd recovered from her bout of embarrassment. "Apology accepted, Sensei. And...no, that isn't what has been bothering me. It's much more than that." She confided. 

"Ah, well then." Nomura invited her outside for a quick smoke. Midoriko didn't smoke. Nomura didn't smoke either. Smoking was forbidden on school grounds. They ended up sitting on a bench near the eastern gate. 

"It's about the bike." 

"It's about the bike." Midoriko agreed, relieved that she didn't need to explain herself. As much. "Except, it's so much _more_ than the bike. You know what I mean?" 

Nomura nodded, ever understanding of her students' nonsense. Former or otherwise. "It's about the girl." 

" _Yes_ ," Relief was short-lived. It was overtaken by trepidation. She'd wanted to ask for a long time; suddenly it felt so stupid. 

She measured her former teacher - her coworker now, maybe her friend - from the corner of her eye. Eleven years had etched lines into Nomura's face, around her mouth and eyes especially. They did nothing to harshen her features. She was just as reassuring as she'd been the day they first covered quadratic equations in class. As she'd been the day Midoriko had told her that she hadn't a clue where Yuzu was. "Go on, dear." That smile still left her certain that there was no such thing as a stupid question. 

"Why is Yuzu's bike still on the racks? Why did the school put a new lock on it when the old one broke?" 

Nomura was blunt as ever. "Because she and her sister might never have a proper grave."  

It takes two years and just a bit under ten minutes for Midoriko to learn one last thing from her favorite teacher. The bike remained, no matter how much of an eyesore it became, because she was not the only one plagued by worst-case scenarios. She was not alone in her doubts about Arisawa and Asano's story. She was not alone in her anxiety over the lack of contact anyone had received from the Kurosakis since their sudden departure. She was not alone in her silent assumption that Kurosaki Yuzu had never finished middle school. Who knew if they were ever going to be one-hundred percent proof positive about their beliefs - but they had a bike on a rack and that would do well for a memorial for now. 

The bell rang, signaling to students and teachers alike that class was about to begin. Nomura gave Midoriko one last touch on the shoulder as she stood up and made her way back inside. Midoriko smiled after the woman. When Nomura was gone, she fixed that smile upon the bike. It stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the shiny new bicycles of her students. Midoriko thought that appropriate. 

"See you after class, Yuzu-chan." She stood and hurried off to her homeroom class. 

She repeated that goodbye on her way home that evening. She greeted Yuzu the next morning. It became as important a part of her routine as unhealthy quantities of coffee and lunch with the other female staff members. Those constants in her life made the changes that came in the next three years easier. 

Her father's stomach cancer came back, and he was gone before the end of the year. He didn't want to do chemotherapy again. Her mother moved in with Kiiroka and her husband, and Midoriko found an apartment.

Once the sense loss had time to dull, Midoriko found solace in her greater independence. She got up the guts to ask Matsui-sensei out shortly afterward. 

They showed up at Nomura-sensei's retirement party together. They met each other's families. The students started to talk. The principal gave them a meaningful look when he paid a visit to the teachers' lounge. Midoriko caught herself admiring bridal gowns in a magazine. She wasn't half as spooked as she was when it happened with her old boyfriend, and that next spring, she said yes. 

Her sister had a baby, and Midoriko had to apologize to her fiance because she honestly had never loved anyone like she loved her niece. She felt like half a mom already with how involved she found herself. Granted, babysitting and grading papers simultaneously did leave her a bit frazzled. 

Matsui dragged her to the beach for summer vacation. No lesson plans, no babies, no three-inch thick wedding binder. Just them, the sand, the surf, and the sun. Matsui turned out to be a terrible surfer, and Midoriko loved him all the more for it. They returned to Karakura Town, tan and refreshed. 

Autumn term kicked off and Midoriko settled back into her routine. Two cups of coffee first thing in the morning as she readied for work, a good morning text to Matsui. A leisurely stroll downhill in the direction of the school in the light of dawn. Goodmorning to Yuzu, second good morning to Matsui in the teachers' lounge. Homeroom, morning classes. Lunch with the other female teachers. Afternoon classes. Final bell and goodbye to Matsui at the front gate, a promise to see each other at dinner later. Supervising the girls' volleyball team practice - 

"I've got iiiiieeeeeyouch!"

A sudden break from routine.

Midoriko rushed to her injured student's side as the captains kept the underclassmen from crowding their teammate. "Ayanami-chan, are you alright?" 

A break from routine, but thankfully not a break in one of Ayanami's bones. There'd be a nasty bruise on her shin tomorrow, but she'd live to spike another day. Nevertheless, Midoriko dismissed practice early after getting Ayanami some ice. The more hardcore players griped some, but the rest of the team seemed happy enough to head home for the afternoon. 

Midoriko fooled with the idea of texting Matsui and asking if he'd like to meet for an impromptu date. In the end, however, some alone time at her apartment sounded nice. Maybe she could even have a little nostalgia anime marathon before dinner. Debating whether to queue up a fluffy  _shoujo_ or something with substance so she could maintain her dignity as a grown woman, she made her way towards the eastern gate. 

She absently bid Yuzu good evening, per usual. A metallic clatter and a gasp halted Midoriko in her path. She turned her head and was met with the sight of girl crouched down next to Yuzu's bike, looking like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Or stealing a bike. 

Stern teacher mode should have activated then. It was overridden by the sheer shock Midoriko was feeling.  

"Yuzu?" For the first time in an age and a half, the name was addressed to a person rather than a bicycle. A person who looked exactly as Yuzu had the last time Midoriko had seen her. Sans the uniform. 

This girl still dressed as Yuzu would have on Sundays off from school. Modest skirt. A pastel sweater with a chibi forest critter stitched across the front. She even had the strawberry clip Yuzu had toted since their kindergarten days. 

Slowly, _cautiously_ , the girl stood to her full height. Yuzu's height. It beyond uncanny. The name Asano Keigo fluttered through Midoriko's awareness. _Asano-san's Ghost Adventures_ , Tuesday nights at 7. Don Kannonji's old time slot. Midoriko didn't want to guest star. This was not how she wanted to end up on TV. 

"My name is Kurosaki Masaki." The girl blurted, red-faced. 

The world went a bit wonky at the mention of that name. Not quite real for a moment. Everything seemed to tilt a degree or so too far to the left. The schoolyard, the girl, the bike on the racks fell out of focus as Midoriko's mind pieced together the bits of new information she'd just been presented. That face, that name. The math was troubling, the reality contradicted everything she'd come to believe about her friend's disappearance, but the proof was staring her right in the face. Looking at her like a ticking time bomb, in fact. Her new reality settled in. Midoriko tried to put on a friendly face - Yuzu would hate to hear she'd treated her family rudely. 

"I - mine is Toona Midoriko. I'm a teacher at this school." 

A smile trembled on Masaki's face. That expression was painfully familiar. A long time ago, Yuzu wore it in her shyest moments: when Ito Akinari called her not just pretty but beautiful, when their teachers singled her out for her excellent work and model behavior, or when someone complimented the embroidery on her school bag she'd done herself. Shy looked good on Yuzu and her daughter both - but Masaki held herself differently. There was a military posture to the set of her shoulders and her stance. An army brat? It made sense for Ichigo. A reassuring thought. 

Masaki flailed an arm. She pointed deliberately at the bike. "This is my mother's. So. I'm not a thief." A fresh flush climbed up the girl's neck to the tips of her ears. She grabbed her pointing arm as if it had acted on its own and cradled it against her chest. 

Midoriko blinked once, twice, willing the words unreal. "Yuzu is your mother. Oh." The math was _very_ troubling.

"Is that an iss-"

"No. No, no, it's fine. It's just, I would have thought Ichigo-san was your-"

"Oh! Well, you know, it's-"

"Complicated, I'm sure." 

"I mean, yes, but also, I - my mother-"

"I'm not passing judgment. Nothing is wrong with - It's just surprising is all. _So young_. Such a drastic - _big_ lifestyle change." Bigger than moving to the sticks, that was for sure. 

"It was -  _I_ was - I - _she_ thought," Masaki closed her eyes and took a deep, meditative breath. Centered herself. A far more confident smile lit up her still-unnervingly familiar face. "Can we start over?" She asked. 

"Of course." Midoriko readily agreed. 

Karakura Town was sleepier than it had been even in Midoriko's youth. Low birthrates meant fewer kids running around, reeking havoc. Shifts in the economy had taken many residents cross-country and overseas. The newspaper had folded thanks to the rise in social media and web-based news. Little local stores Midoriko had frequented growing up had long closed up shop. Many were bought-out by national chains. It was sad that Yuzu's daughter couldn't visit the town in its heyday. Maybe it was a sort of karmic trade-off for the drop in sudden catastrophes the town experienced each year. No more spontaneously collapsing buildings in exchange for a much more boring, albeit safe place to live. 

Midoriko was thankful at least her old favorite ice cream parlor was open all these years later. Two vanilla cones and a short stroll found them a nice patch of levy to enjoy them on. The river had been super polluted since the industrial age and was only recently being cleaned up under new environmental policy, but it sure did look beautiful at sunset. 

"I hope your mom won't be mad at me for spoiling your dinner," Midoriko laughed. 

Masaki had no qualms about giving her cone a good long lick. "I haven't had ice cream in ages. She won't mind one bit. Thank you again, Midori- _Toona_ -sensei."

She tried to ignore that. She even succeeded for a half minute. "Your mother ever mention me?" 

Masaki took a chomp out of her ice cream and hummed around it as if she hadn't quite heard her. 

"You seem more familiar with my given name is all. I figured maybe that's because she told you a story or two. Nothing embarrassing, I hope." 

"No," Masaki wiped her mouth clean with the back of her wrist. "Nothing embarrassing. She only had good things to say about you." 

Midoriko nodded at that. Drummed her fingers on her knees, busied her mouth with her ice cream. _Enjoy it_ , she told herself. A mantra. Enjoy the ice cream, enjoy that information. Just for a moment. A literal minute. 

The minute was up. Her ice cream was finished, cone and all. She'd gulfed it down in her nervousness. The question just slipped out. "Do you know why Yuzu never got a hold of me after she moved away?" 

Masaki squirmed. Perhaps Midoriko was being the tinsiest bit unfair. 

"I'm sorry," 

"Don't be!" The force of her words was startling. For that reason, Midoriko was sure she had offended the girl. 

"Let's talk about something else then," A change of topic wasn't the most genius conflict resolution method out there, but it was the first Midoriko plucked from the air. "What's your mom up to these days?" And it wasn't exactly a change of topic either. 

The small grimace on her conversation partner's face spoke of her silent agreement on that point. "Ah, well, her job is kinda hard to explain." 

That was actually a pleasant surprise. Midoriko had always feared Yuzu would spend the rest of her life folding shirts. "Oh, so Yuzu's a working mom?" 

"She definitely works...Really hard, too. The best way I can explain it without going into detail is that she's - a philanthropist maybe? Slash PR person?" 

"Public relations? That..." Sounded strange of Yuzu. "Sounds interesting."

"It's nothing like a big company or anything. It's all for her family - her cousins, really. They make fireworks, you see, and they're like fireworks themselves in a lot of ways. They have some... _problems_ with authority, and sometimes come across as a bit rough around the edges. Honestly, they _are_ rough around the edges. But super nice, too, don't get me wrong! People just don't always see that. Especially stuffy old guy types that tend to run everything. My mom ended up leaving school last minute to step up as their public face. Her older cousins still really run things but a lot of stuff with the, um, city council, I guess, goes through her. I'm not crystal on the details!" Masaki giggled sheepishly. 

Midoriko smiled. "It sounds like her." Yuzu was still working for her family's sake. She could only be glad that her friend seemed to have found a way to do that beyond laundry and dishes. "I bet she does a good job." 

"Yeah, it keeps her busy, too." That little sigh made Midoriko wonder. 

"I hope that hasn't put a crimp in things between her and your dad at home. Actually, may I ask about him? Yuzu always used to clam up on the topic of boys, so I wonder what kind of guy ended up her type." 

"Oh, well..."

"I'm overstepping, aren't I?" 

"No, I don't think so...I just don't know what to say. I guess, my dad is, um..." A somewhat hysteric giggle. "Let's just say he's practically a ghost! _Super_ busy, never really see him at home, could say he doesn't exist even. Ha, ha..." 

Math crept up on her again, looming large and menacingly as it often did on adults in unexpected situations. Calculating tips during her summer in America had been pure Hell. Unfortunately, Midoriko didn't need to dig out her cellphone for this bit of arithmetic. Masaki looked about thirteen. Midoriko had last seen her mother almost fifteen years prior. It was troubling on multiple levels. As a teacher, it upset her. As a woman, it frightened her. As a friend, it confused her. There was a story there that Masaki wasn't telling. 

"I'm glad," She spoke tentatively. "That your mother continued with school after you were born, even if she did leave last minute like you said. University must've been tough in her circumstances. But I'm sure Karin-chan and Ichigo-san helped out plenty."

"Tons," Said Masaki. "Of course, they had their own lives to live...That was hard for my mother at first. She tried to put it off for a long time, first with the move and then going to school to try and work with her dad and brother. She ended up having to concede to fate a second time. Everyone in the family has their own lives now. It made her kind of depressed for a while...She even considered coming back here once or twice. But then she looked around and realized she'd built up a whole life of her own and she couldn't just leave it like she had Karakura Town. She loves it too much." 

Midoriko regarded the girl from the corner of her eye, troubled by her words. They left her conflicted. On one hand, she wanted to be happy for Yuzu. She not only had a life somewhere - a far and away improvement over the shallow grave she'd been imagining all these years - but one independent of her father and siblings. A life she loved. Yuzu even had her own little family in the form of a daughter. On the other hand, Midoriko had had no part in Yuzu's new life. She'd been cut off from it, seemingly with uncharacteristic deliberateness. Now, this piece of Yuzu sat beside her, emblematic of everything she'd missed out on. 

"Why are you here then?" If Yuzu loved her new life so much, why bring her daughter around her old stomping grounds? Midoriko wondered bitterly just how many calls Asano had gotten about ghost-sightings around Karakura as mother and daughter played tourist. 

Masaki's silence spoke of something more complicated than tourism, however. "Because, I guess - for comfort." 

Midoriko would've put her money on nostalgia. "Comfort?" 

"Yeah, comfort..." Masaki plucked anxiously at the grass. "I mean, back home stuff doesn't change all that quickly or dramatically as here - sleepy towns, ya know? Stuff happens all the time, but unless you look real close it seems like the only things that change are the seasons. Change happens to others, not us...

"We got word that Ichigo's friend Sado-kun is going to be a dad soon. Everyone is super excited and happy for him - I am, too, of course. But part of me got anxious because I started thinking about how everyone back in Karakura Town was getting older. In ways I can't relate to. We hear from Asano-kun and Tatsuki-chan fairly often. Usually about their careers and things that don't make you think too much about their ages. It's not like they work normal adult jobs. Tatsuki-chan's always been fighting, and it sounds just like Asano-kun to be goofing around with ghosts. Sado-kun's baby, though, it made me think about how almost all Ichigo's friends who came back to Karakura were married with mortgages now. They obviously couldn't have been the only ones to grow up, so... 

"I just wanted to check in on things here. See what had changed." Masaki had a tall pile of shredded grass on either side of her. She looked helpless with her green hands and nothing to wipe them clean with. "The bike surprised me. It looked a little worse for wear, but it still being there made me strangely happy if a little sad." 

The wind picked up. Midoriko watched blades of grass be swept across an orange and purple sky where they disappeared into the oncoming night. "You speak from your mother's point of view," She remarked. Masaki shifted beside her as if readying to bolt at any moment. Midoriko pinned her down with a look. "Why is that?" 

Masaki turned away from her. "Because," She clenched her little fists, hiding her green-stained palms. "Lying is harder for me than it is for the rest of my family." 

Midoriko stood. Masaki followed. 

"Who are you?" 

"I want you to remember this." 

"Answer my question." 

"I'm telling you why I can't." 

"Who. are. you?" Midoriko tried to keep her voice level. She didn't want to make a scene yelling at a teenage girl and have it reflect badly on the school. But the girl, Masaki, whoever she was, was infuriating. Her lost best friend was a sacred subject and she didn't appreciate being yanked around by some bizarro clone. 

Masaki's expression was pained when she finally managed to meet Midoriko's eye again. "Please, I feel like enough of a hypocrite already. Just accept that there are some things you can't know until it's your turn."

_"Look me up when it's your turn, okay?"_

The recollection was sudden and terrible. Those words had never made a lick of sense. "Yuzu said that before she left. What did she mean by that?" Midoriko demanded. 

"She meant just that." Midoriko whirled around, coming face-to-face with the punk. It _had_ be him because the odds that he too had an identical child running around were far more astronomical than the odds he'd happened to age rather well. Besides, while matching father-son tattoos were a possibility, scars were a bit much.

Doubts crept up on Midoriko. Doubts in herself, old doubts from a long past night. She'd wondered if the tattooed narcoleptic had really been Yuzu's cousin. If he wasn't, then maybe he was a run of the mill creep instead and Masaki really was Yuzu's daughter. But none of that explained her odd behavior, the cryptic language - nothing could be explained. 

Not by math and genetics, anyways. 

The punk looked past Midoriko. His rough features softened a fraction. "I've been looking all over for you. The others have all finished their business here. It's time to head back."

Midoriko turned back to Masaki to find her watching the last vestiges of sunset over Karakura Town. She looked too nostalgic for a mere visitor. The girl reminded Midoriko of her sister on her own first visit back after moving away. That cinched it. 

"It was nice seeing Karakura Town again." She declared as she put her back to the river. She slid down the levy on her heels with a grace she hadn't had before. 

She and the punk met on the sidewalk. She gave the plastic bag in his hand a nosy poke; she'd always been a bit nosy. He relented and let her peek his purchases. 

"CDs? I thought Sado-kun said those were obsolete?" 

The punk scrubbed at his neck, embarrassed. "All I've got back at the barracks is a CD player." 

She giggled. "Well, at least, I know what to get you for your birthday." 

"Yuzu-chan..." That soft chastisement. It squeezed the breath from Midoriko, though she'd been watching them, well aware of their identities, for a handful of minutes now. It drew the punk's attention back to her. His fluster turned grim. "Yuzu-chan, what about her?" 

Yuzu spared her glance, but 'spared' really wasn't the right word. Midoriko didn't feel like an afterthought. In fact, she felt like she was at the very center of Yuzu's thoughts and feelings in that moment. Midoriko recalled every minute of the few hours they'd spent together, and she appreciated how much Yuzu had tried to share with her in that time. She didn't quite understand why she'd had to pretend to be her own daughter and gone along with all the charade's unsettling implications, but maybe the rulebook of the afterlife had some sub-clause or fine print about messing with the livings' heads. It wasn't that important. Midoriko would find out when it was her turn. 

Yuzu shook her head at the punk's question. "Midoriko was never a gossipy schoolgirl when we were classmates, Hisagi-kun. Of all things in Karakura Town, I think that hasn't changed. We can trust her." And though her cheery smile was directed at the punk, Midoriko had a perfect view from the top of the levy. 

After a moment's hesitation, the punk nodded and, with little waves goodbye her way, the two started off down the road. The street lamps flickered to life, lighting their way. 

Midoriko cupped her hands around her mouth and called out after them, "See you later, Yuzu!"

They stopped and turned back as those who still plan to leave do. A grin broke out across Yuzu's face and gave a big, wide, enthusiastic wave with her whole right arm. "Same! Remember, look me up when it's your turn!" 

"Will do!" 

Girlish giggles bounced off the old Karakura shops through the late summer night. The punk gave one last shy little wave of his own and hustled Yuzu off to their destination. Midoriko watched her friend grow ever smaller in the distance before blinking and finding her vanished into cool night air. 

She met Matsui for dinner at their favorite family restaurant later that evening. Right off the bat, he asked what she was smiling about, feigning offense that she wasn't usually so cheered to see him as she was tonight. Midoriko told him a little white lie about treating herself to a nostalgia marathon after volleyball practice. After all, how does one explain to their fiance that they're elated to believe in ghosts for the first time since they were a little kid? 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed the story!


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